


When He Can't

by kinkandquiet



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dehydration, Desperation, Hurt/Comfort, Kink, M/M, Omorashi, Paruresis, Pee shy, Watersports, shy bladder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 21:04:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9142147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinkandquiet/pseuds/kinkandquiet
Summary: A young man who can't pee away from home goes on a road trip. His boyfriend mourns the loss of his sanity.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I used to write 10k omorashi stories. This is one I never posted. Mostly because it seems to attend more to the hurt/comfort aspect than the kink aspect, but also because it inspired later Lyndon/Alex stories which were incompatible. I've cleaned it up for the new year. Happy 2017!

Noah knew it was a bad idea from the moment he agreed to it. Hell, he'd known it was a bad idea before that. He'd known it was a bad idea in principle. But Nikita had said yes, and so Noah had agreed.

Nikita was packing an overnight bag. Noah watched from the doorway as he folded a black, long-sleeve shirt in beside slim black jeans. That was a bad idea, too. It was the middle of summer. Scorching temperatures were assured on their trip.

"Nikita, you know this is a bad idea."

His back to Noah, Nikita dropped his headphones into the bag. "I can handle it."

"Nikita." Noah couldn't keep the frustration out of his voice.

"I said I can handle it."

"Man, I love you, but did you hit your head or something?"

"If you don't want to come, don't come, Noah. It's whatever."

"It's not whatever. It's a big deal. You don't go anywhere overnight. You sure as hell don't stay in a hotel with half our friends."

"All of our friends," Nikita corrected. "Except for us if we don't go."

"And how will we survive" Noah deadpanned, "without an exciting trip to the world's most generic theme park?"

"I don't know." Nikita slapped down the cover on his bag. "I don't have to know, because we're going."

"It's three hours away."

"Yes."

"When you want to leave, it's going to be a three hour ride home."

"You just said that."

"You're going to piss yourself."

Nikita's jaw visibly tensed. "I said I can handle it."

Noah wanted to punch him a little, and he suspected the feeling was mutual. "Yeah? Like you did when we first moved in together?"

The feeling was definitely mutual. Nikita's dark eyes were alight with irritation and, Noah couldn't help but notice, a flash of hurt.

"You promised we wouldn't talk about that."

He had said that, and he'd meant it, but... "I never thought I'd have to remind you."

"You don't."

Noah shot a meaningful look to Nikita's packed bag, which now sat behind him on the creased cotton sheets of their unmade bed. Nikita didn't turn around. Instead he moved straight forward, his elbow catching Noah in the stomach when he stood and forced his way through the open door.

Noah jumped. "Hey, ow!"

Nikita continued into the main room of their shared apartment, entering the open kitchen to rifle through the half empty drawers of the fridge while Noah rubbed the space between his abs that didn't truly hurt. It could have--Nikita was bony and he knew how to use it. Noah clearly hadn't reached that level of threat yet. The jab was a warning, though--he was treading near things Nikita wouldn't, or couldn't, talk about.

"Fine," Noah muttered, still rubbing his stomach despite the fact that Nikita was determinedly not looking at him. "However you like it, honey. Go ahead and wet yourself."

The fridge slammed shut with a shudder. Nikita had gone pink and angry. One hand curled into a fist. His soft, long hair lay over very stiff shoulders. He swallowed, licked his lip, and didn't take the bait.

"I'll see you Sunday night."

"You'll see me Saturday morning."

Belatedly, Noah realized his attack on Nikita's pride only prevented him from changing his mind about the ill-advised trip. Nikita's dark grey eyes were cool and lifeless like a doll's, a detached kind of defense mechanism that Noah felt guilty for triggering despite himself. Shit.

"Pack a bag." Nikita looked determined. "We're going to have fun."

Oh, yeah. Noah sighed as Nikita disappeared through the doorway. Loads of fun.

Saturday morning, Noah had packed a bag with a few extras. They weren’t exactly talking. Noah didn't know what to say that wouldn't make things worse.

He was Nikita's boyfriend, not his minder. Probably he should have fucked off like Nikita wanted him to. He couldn't help caring anyway.

Outside the apartment, Nikita was waiting on the street with his bag.

Jack, Annie, and Stella were late, which was utterly unsurprising for a group of college kids about to embark on a journey to a distant theme park. In all likelihood, only Noah had Nikita had even packed for the overnight trip.

Steeling himself, Noah stepped up to Nikita's shoulder. "Are we talking?"

"Well, we are now." Nikita promptly turned and walked away.

"And now we're not," Noah remarked to the empty space beside him. "Right."

Several paces down the sidewalk, Nikita wrapped his arms around himself. Noah caught a sideways glance he probably wasn't meant to.

Rolling his eyes, he went to stand beside Nikita again. "I don't even know why you're mad, Nik."

"You're not supposed to talk about it." Nikita stared resolutely forward.

"Your thing, or moving in?"

"Either. Both."

"If it makes you feel better, it never bothered me." Noah rubbed a hand over the back of his own neck, conscious of the public street and Nikita's privacy. "You know that, right? I get you have.. issues..."

"Issues, Noah? You make me sound like a trauma victim."

"Please. You are the trauma."

This won him a smirk, which Noah counted as a win. He breathed out, going on:

"I'm not bothered. I don't deal with... okay, issues is a bad word. I don't deal with whatever you deal with, and I'm not weirded out. I mean, it’s just p--"

"Oh god, stop." Nikita tipped his head back, looking to the sky with a woebegone expression.

Into the silence, Noah offered a half formed idea. "Would it help if I pissed in front of you?"

Nikita turned wide eyes on him.

"I mean, it wouldn't bother me."

Nikita opened his mouth. He closed it. Noah thought he had either stumbled across a brilliant idea, or Nikita was about the verbally eviscerate him.

A van pulled up to the sidewalk.

Out of the van streamed their friends. Annie, the shortest and most cheerful hopped out first and threw her arms around Nikita in a hug. Stella followed her at a more sedate pace. She dropped a kiss on Noah's left cheek in greeting. Nikita snarled at her.

It was their typical greeting.

Jack stayed in the driver's seat of the van, offering a distracted wave. His floppy hair looked tinted blue. When Noah stepped into the van he confirmed that, yes, blue.

Jack said without provocation, "I question your sense of style too."

Noah lifted his hands in surrender.

Quickly, the five of them had filtered into the van in traditional formation. In the back seat, Nikita didn't put his bag between them, which meant they weren't arguing anymore. Noah slung his arm around him.

"Does anyone get carsick?" Annie dug around in the bottomless void of her purse, a leather bag that dwarfed her in size. "I brought ginger candies. They're supposed to help with carsickness."

"We've known each other for years," Nikita pointed out. "None of us gets motion sick."

Annie looked put out. "I just read about it."

"I like ginger," Noah offered, mostly to throw her a bone.

Annie brightened up considerably, and Noah ended up with a handful of ginger.

By the time they checked into their hotel, everyone in the car agreed that they did not like ginger, including Noah.

Everyone but Nikita, who couldn’t be talked into even the smallest bite of candy. 

It didn’t raise Noah’s suspicions any--Nikita was a picky eater--but when they filed into the hotel lobby and everyone except Nikita got their favorite snacks and drinks from the vending machines, he raised his eyebrows.

“What do you want, babe?” Noah asked, holding a bottle of blue gatorade and cheese puffs in his arms and eyeing the package of oreo cookies on the third row.

“I’m fine,” said Nikita, which was… hm.

Noah turned away from the oreos, meeting Nikita’s gaze. His eyebrows drew together. “You’re not hungry?”

The trip from home to the hotel had been closer to four hours than three, and since they hadn’t been talking that morning, Noah had no idea if Nikita had even eaten breakfast.

Nikita smiled stiffly. “I’m fine.”

Annie scoffed. She appeared to be in the process of ripping a package of peanut butter cups open with her teeth. “This is why he’s so skinny. God, have a sandwich.”

“I’m,” Nikita began, and Jack and Noah simultaneously finished for him “fine.”

Nikita glared. He swung around and headed in the opposite direction, presumably toward their hotel room. Stella followed after him. With a shrug, Noah trailed behind, oreos forgotten.

It was lunchtime by the time they made from the hotel to the theme park, and it was unanimously decided--by Annie--that the first order of business, before any actual rides, was hotdogs and soda. 

And that was when Noah finally _got it_. Because as he slipped in beside his boyfriend at the vaguely sticky, bright green bench, Nikita’s knuckles bumped his knee under the table. When Noah looked over, Nikita wasn’t even looking at him. He was eyeing their friends, who were too caught up in arguing over the first ride they’d go on to notice the sound of soda pouring onto the concrete.

Nikita straightened up and set his empty soda cup on the table. Noah tilted his head.

"What are you doing?"

"Handling it."

That had Noah raising both eyebrows. "Will that work?" Noah asked.

Nikita pursed his lips. It wasn’t exactly a resounding yes.

But it did seem to work. For awhile. They ate lunch, they waited in lines, they went on rides, they went on the same rides again, and Nikita never looked at the restrooms or the drinking fountains.

Handling it. Right.

They were in line for the third time on the same coaster when a guy in a baseball cap three people in front of them dropped a half full bottle of coke, which fizzed and spilled on the ground. He yelled something at his friend, and Noah, with his hand on the small of Nikita’s back, felt Nikita flinch.

Noah turned towards him. Nikita’s jaw was clenched hard as were his fists. His gaze was fixed on the puddle in front of them. 

Noah didn’t say ‘I told you so’ but it was a near thing.

Nikita was miserable. He was probably horribly thirsty and despite that, Noah suspected his bladder was still protesting. It was nearly dusk, for fuck's sake. He'd been to the public restrooms himself several times, a few in hopes Nikita would follow, but of course he hadn't. Added to that, they were surrounded by strangers. Loud strangers. Nikita was practically vibrating with stress.

So instead of ‘I told you so’ Noah said “We’ve been on this ride three times.”

His friends turned towards him. Stella corrected mildly, “Twice, actually.”

“Twice.” Noah agreed. “Twice is good for me. I need a break.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “A break… from waiting in line? Dude.”

Noah was already lifting the velvet divider that separated the serpentine line. He tugged on Nikita’s hand. “Just text me later and we’ll head back to the hotel.”

“Killjoy,” said Jack. 

“Make sure your phone is on,” said Stella.

“Where are we going?” said Nikita.

Noah pulled him out of the line. They had to go far enough that he was sure they were out of sight of the others. Then he dropped onto a bench, where Nikita hesitantly sat beside him.

“You don’t even like it here.”

Nikita blinked. 

“I don’t get you, man.”

That was hardly news, so Nikita just shrugged and leaned far enough to his left to be leaning on Noah’s shoulder. 

Noah sighed. “It’s been hot all day, you’re wearing fucking black, and you haven’t had anything to drink. You’re dehydrated.”

“Probably,” Nikita mumbled into his shoulder.

“So drink something!”

Nikita closed his eyes, like he was going to nap on Noah’s shoulder. Which Noah wouldn’t have minded, if he didn’t suspect Nikita’s exhaustion and the general lack of energy he’d been exuding all day didn’t stem from dehydration.

He tried a different tactic. “Honey...”

“No.”

Well then. “You drive me crazy.”

“Correlation does not imply causation.”

Noah tilted his head back and stared at the blue sky. "Nikita, I can’t fucking take it, please, man, drink something. _Anything_."

“I’m fine.”

Noah resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall, mostly because there wasn’t a convenient wall nearby and the way Nikita was leaning on him suggested he’d fall over if Noah moved.

“You’re fine, huh?”

“Mm.”

“Fine enough to wait in another line?”

“Mmhm.”

“Fine enough to go on the Grand Rapids?” Noah asked, pointing across the park at one of the more popular water rides. 

Nikita had been vetoing water rides all day. It wasn’t as if Noah didn’t know why. Against his shoulder, he could feel Nikita’s jaw tensing, but he didn’t say anything. 

“Either you’re fine, and we can get in line for the Grand Rapids,” said Noah, feeling like the Grade-A dick he knew he was being, “Or you’re _not_ fine, and I’ll get you a gatorade.” He paused, and then offered as an olive branch. “Which you only have to sip.”

“Your mercy knows no bounds.” Nikita snarked.

“Gatorade or the ride.”

After a long, tense moment, Nikita stood, and Noah felt his stomach sink. His dark eyes were blank and impossible to read. “Let’s get in line.”

\-----

“I can’t believe you went on the Grand Rapids without me,” Annie whined from the front seat of the van on the way back to the hotel.

Noah dropped his head into his hands. “Neither can I.”

Beside him, Nikita was sitting stock still, his back straight like a board, his hands curled into fists and resting on his thighs.

Noah had simultaneous, conflicting urges to strangle him and to kiss him on the forehead.

He’d failed in both getting Nikita to drink anything and in getting him to at least enter a public restroom in the time between leaving their friends and meeting up again at the van. He was a failure of a _human being_. And a pretty awful boyfriend.

They traveled back to the hotel in a shared exhaustion, quiet all the way up the stairs to their floor and down the hall to the single room with three queen beds. As soon as they stepped over the threshold, Noah grabbed Nikita’s wrist and dragged him into the single bathroom. Outside, Annie laughed.

It had been fourteen hours since Nikita had last seen a toilet. Because Nikita was Nikita, he fumbled past Noah and started brushing his teeth. He brushed weakly, moving the toothbrush halfheartedly up and down, swishing water in his mouth and spitting it out. Then again, and a third time. His mouth was dry.

"Nikita."

Nikita spit out the third gulp of water.

"Nikki."

"What?"

Noah bit back his concern over not receiving even the slightest fight over the nickname. It wasn’t normal for Nikita.

"You're thirsty," he gentled his voice into something serious, since it was clear Nikita wasn't up for playing anymore. "Have a sip of water."

"Handling it," Nikita reminded him vaguely.

"You've handled it," Noah said. "Nevermind what I said before. It's your panic di—"

"Don't."

Hallelujah, still a little fight left. "It's your business. You were right about coming on this trip. You handled it. But you have to drink something now. Just a little bit, or you're going to end up in the hospital.”

"My mouth is dry." Nikita sipped water from the sink, swished it around his teeth, and spit it out again.

"You're dehydrated. That won't help."

"Okay," Nikita agreed. He stepped vaguely towards the door, but didn't bother trying to push Noah out of his way.

"Everyone's going to be in and out of the bathroom after us," Noah tried to reason. "You're thirsty. Drink something now so you don't have to wait."

"I'll drink at home."

"Nikita."

Someone banged on the bathroom door behind them.

"We'll be out in a second!" Noah called over his shoulder.

"Hurry up!" Jack complained. "Some of us have to piss!"

A flicker of a smile graced Nikita's lips. Noah found himself returning it. "Yeah. Weird how some people have to piss more than once at day, huh?"

Nikita's smile twinged. He admitted hoarsely, "I'm so thirsty."

"Drink something." Noah guided him with a firm hand to the sink. "Please, man. Just a cup of water so I can feel better about it, all right? You'll sleep through the night, and in the morning you'll be half asleep on the drive home. You can have some water."

Noah wanted to praise the sky when Nikita leaned over and cupped his hand under the faucet, sipping the running water from his hands.

"Thank you." Noah murmured when Nikita pulled back. It wasn’t nearly a long enough drink to satisfy him, or Nikita's throat, going by the way he keep swallowing once he'd turned the faucet off, but at least he knew Nikita had had something to drink that night. When they get home, Noah was going to put him on the couch and load him up with gatorade until he had the energy to be angry about it.

Nikita nodded, rubbed his eyes weakly and stepped in front of Noah again. "Let me out."

Noah opened the door for him like royalty. Outside, their friends laughed, and Jack pushed his way past and slammed the door.

If Nikita got desperate or brave enough to try the hotel's toilet, it'd be awhile longer before the option was open to him, and longer still before everyone was asleep, if he'd dare that. Even that was extremely unlikely, and Noah wasn't counting on it. Nikita hadn't said he was uncomfortable, hadn't asked how much longer—a whole night and morning—he only looked tired and pale. Still too pale. As soon as they were out of the bathroom, Nikita went to their bed and lay on his side, half curled up.

"Nikita," Annie called from two beds away. "Take your shoes off, you bum. You'll get the bed dirty."

Stella scoffed. "He'll get the bed dirty with his shoes? Please. Try 'Nikita, you'll get your shoes dirty with those hotel blankets."

Stella had brought her own sheets and a pillow, shoved into her suitcase where Nikita was keeping more changes of clothes than anyone wore on a day trip, and Annie was keeping shoes, and Noah was keeping, among other things, empty bottles. Now, though, he thought he'd be better off with full ones.

Nikita was dehydrated. Up and walking around in the sun at the park he had looked simply tired, but in the dim hotel room, lying down, eyes half closed, he looked positively frightening. What could dehydration do to a person? Noah was suddenly afraid.

Annie and Stella's short, heated argument about hotel beds died down when Annie finally turned back to Nikita and remarked at his prone form. "He's so tired." She bit her lip, clearly finding it cute. Annie found everything cute. "Nikita, you look like a really sad painting."

"What?" Stella laughed.

"Flat," Noah muttered back. He went over to stand by the side of their bed and touched Nikita's forehead. Nikita made a vague noise and shifted. His forehead was not unusually hot, but it was dry, like his mouth had been.

Noah swallowed a lump of concern. He opened his mouth, hoping it was not a great betrayal when he finally turned to Stella. "Stella, I'm worried he might be dehydrated. He's been tired, you know."

Stella, who had been making her bed up with protective sheets, perked up immediately. She was pre-med, and although she knew more chemistry than general practitioner know-how, she was helpful.

"Nikita," she said, standing up from her bed and half approaching. "Do you feel okay? Are you awake?"

When Nikita didn't reply, Noah nudged his shoulder. "Nikki."

Both girls waited for Nikita to snap back at him. Nikita murmured a vague. "Okay."

Annie gasped. "Oh my god, there's something wrong with him. What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing's wrong with him," Noah snapped, perhaps a bit sensitive on the issue. "Nikita, Stella wants to know if you feel sick."

"No," Nikita mumbled.

Stella came straight over. She stood over him like a goddess in pajamas, lifting his limp wrist in what Noah knew was taking his pulse. "Nikita, how long have you been feeling weak?"

"It's fine," Nikita mumbled. "I don't care."

Noah throat hurt.

"What's going on?" Jack asked as he exited the bathroom, freshly changed.

"See if there's a thermometer in there. A first aid kit. Look under the sink," Stella ordered.

Swallowing, Noah went to sit on the opposite side of the bed Stella was standing at, his boyfriend's back to him. He lay his hand on Nikita's shoulder through his clothes. Not warm, no fever. He couldn't feel the dryness through clothes. He just felt like Nikita. Noah wanted to take him home. He wanted him to be able to drink when he was thirsty, and piss before he was desperate. But they were three hours from home, and Nikita was thirsty and he hadn't emptied his bladder since that morning, if it even mattered to him.

"Pulse is okay. Skin temps not too hot," Stella rattled off.

Jack stepped back out. "There's no first aid kit. Is he okay?"

Stella took her hand off his wrist. Nikita curled it into his chest.

"I think so," Stella said, looking skeptical. "Nikita?"

"I'm fine," Nikita didn’t bother lifting his head. "My shoes are fine."

Stella still looked concerned, but withdrew. "You could still be dehydrated. Jack, water?"

Halfway to his bed, Jack rolled his eyes but obediently went back to the bathroom, turned the tap on, and came back out with a little paper cup of water.

"Something with sugar would be better," Stella was saying to herself. "The vending machines are just downstairs. Juice would be better than soda, but I'm not sure if they had it."

The bed shifted when Nikita tensed. Noah rubbed circles between Nikita's shoulder blades. He murmured a word of thanks when Jack gave up trying to hand the cup of water to an unresponsive Nikita and handed it to Noah instead.

Annie and Stella were arguing again. Annie said "Chocolate is full of sugar. You said sugar. Seriously, did he even eat today? I don't remember. Nikita, you weren't there when Jack and I were having ice cream. Did you try the ice cream? It was so good—"

"Could you be quiet?" Nikita's even tone might as well have echoed in the room. "I'm trying to sleep."

Annie looked hurt, then annoyed. "You have your shoes on."

He did, indeed, and Noah had never known Nikita to _try_ to sleep. Nikita fell asleep at odd intervals, often not in bed. If that was how he wanted to handle it, though, Noah would support him. He felt guilty having started the conversation in the first place, and no less concerned about how thirsty Nikita might be. The water sat on the bedside table untouched.

So he moved to untie Nikita's shoes for him, and let Annie remark on how cute it was.

"A little privacy?" Noah requested, making an exaggerated movement towards Nikita's shirt. Annie giggled but looked away. Jack was already in bed. Stella was eyeing them skeptically.

"Have him drink that. Nikita? Drink that. You could have heatstroke."

"I'll have him drink it," Noah muttered. Stella went to her bed and began to work on the corners of the sheets once more.

Even with all the attention in the room off him, Nikita just let Noah keep undressing him. He made no motion to help or to stop him. He really was tired.

Noah pulled his shirt up and grabbed a soft night one from the bag before he went to unbutton Nikita's jeans.

The waist of the stupid, skinny, tight black things was pressed hard against an unnatural bulge below Nikita's navel.

Of course it was.

Noah swallowed his words—he would not say I told you so. He might not say that ever again. At least for the rest of the month.

He was very, very careful when he unbuttoned the clasp of the tight jeans. He knew Nikita could feel the workings of his fingers. He was careful not to press on the small roundness there, because what would Nikita do if he did? He was a night’s sleep and hours away from the only source of relief that existed, at least in Nikita's own mind.

Still, Nikita gasped softly into the hotel pillow when Noah pulled the unbuttoned, unzipped jeans down his hips. Wordlessly Noah folded them, and after looking at his unmoving Nikita for a few moments, pulled the soft cotton bottoms up his slim legs. The elastic waistband he didn’t know what to do with. He let it fall low over Nikita's pelvis, avoiding his bladder.

Noah stood to change clothes himself, and only then noticed the spots of white around Nikita's clenched knuckles. His hands were curled into his chest and his fingers into fists. His eyes were clenched tightly.

With a glance over his shoulder to insure their privacy, Noah leaned over Nikita's curled up self, sinking down so he could talk quietly into Nikita's ear.

"In a few hours, everyone will be asleep...." Nikita peeked one eye open, the first signs of life in his huddled form. "It'll be like they're not even here."

"Don't," Nikita said.

Noah didn't. He nodded, kissed Nikita's temple, and removed himself from the bed entirely. Once he'd changed clothes, the others were settling in for the night as well. The main light was off and bedside lamps were on. Jack was snoring already, despite the light. Annie and Stella were murmuring to each other. Noah slipped under the blanket beside Nikita and met a problem.

He nudged his boyfriends shoulder. "Can you move so you're under the blanket?"

Wordless, Nikita did, shifting painfully slowly, carefully, and, once under the likely dirty hotel blanket, did something surprising. He rolled over so he was facing Noah, instead of away, and moved into his space, sharing warmth, his hands coming to Noah' forearms.

Uncertain, Noah moved to pull him into a hug. Nikita relaxed in his arms, melting from how incredibly tense he'd been. Not just weak, or tired, but tense.

Noah rubbed his back. "There's a cup of water on the table behind you.”

"I can't.”

"It's there if you get thirsty in the night.” Noah paused, and then offered, his voice going soft. “I’m sorry I offered you a choice between gatorade and that stupid ride. I just wanted you to drink.”

Nikita shrugged slightly. “I know.”

Noah sighed. "Go to sleep. I'll try not to wake you up if I get up before you, okay?"

Nikita said into Noah collarbones, "You're not going to say you were right?"

Not for at least two months, now. Maybe even three.

"I was wrong," Noah told the top of his head. "We went to the theme park. We're staying in a hotel. You were right."

Nikita didn't seem to know what to do with that, or he was already falling asleep. He was heavy in Noah' arms and Noah held him tighter.

"Let's not do it again," Nikita mumbled.

"Theme parks are really awful places," Noah agreed.

"I wish we were home," the first signs of even the vaguest emotion graced Nikita's quiet tone. "I want to go home."

Noah arms tightened along with the strings in his heart. "Go to sleep," he said as the last light by Stella and Annie's bed was flipped off, "and we'll be going home when you wake up."

Nikita settled into the circle of Noah’s arms. With all the heat and sun he'd endured that day, and probably with the lack of water as well, Nikita was quickly breathing the even breaths of a light sleep. Noah sighed in relief and fell asleep not long after.

He woke once or twice during the night. The first time, perhaps because of some vague rocking motion in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar city, but he fell asleep again at the recognition of the familiar body in his arms. The second time he woke, that body had shifted, and Noah’s arms were wrapped around a waist.

Noah blinked sleepily into the night, vaguely aware that Nikita was awake too. He tightened his arms, murmuring, "Go back to sleep."

Nikita didn't speak. A hollow sound came from a table next to him, not where the table was in their own bedroom, and Noah was almost asleep before he realized what it was. Nikita had woken, in the night, dying of thirst, and actually given in enough to have the cup of water.

Still groggy, Noah yawned a muffled "Want more?"

Nikita shifted in his arms. Noah rolled slightly so he could look up where Nikita was sitting up, holding the empty cup he'd just set down. Noah couldn't see any more than that in the dark.

"Nikita?" Noah yawned. "If you want some more water, just say."

His eyes were drifting shut when Nikita's hand came to clamp around the fabric of Noah's shirt.

"I'm so thirsty," Nikita sounded far more awake than Noah felt. How long had he been awake? "Really, really thirsty."

Noah was out of bed and on his feet before he could properly figure out the layout of their hotel room yet. "Water," he explained when Nikita made an enquiring noise.

He found the bathroom and the cups by hand, not willing to brave the brightness of the light, nor the wrath of his woken friends. He tipped the faucet on and got his own hands wet before he filled the cup, then tried not to spill it as he brought it back to bed.

The wet cup was taken quickly from his hands, before he'd even reached the bed.

Noah considered waiting to be given the cup so he could refill it. Now it was Nikita who said into the dark, "Go to sleep."

The next time he woke, the room was light. Annie was brushing her hair. Stella missing from her bed. Jack was presumably the lump under the blankets of his. Nikita was still in his arms. Noah yawned, kissed him on the ear, saw the two empty cups on the bedside table, and remembered how still and frightening Nikita had seemed the night before.

"I'm awake," Nikita said, before Noah had even asked. "Everyone is."

Noah blinked and rubbed his eyes, sitting up with Nikita still curled towards him. "Not Jack."

"Fuck off," said Jack from a pile of blankets. At least, that's what Noah assumed he had said.

"Oh." He looked around again. The bathroom door was closed, solving the mystery of where Stella had gone. It was perhaps too much to hope that Nikita had stolen away to pee while everyone had been sleeping.

A quick check of his boyfriend's state said no, definitely not.

The water had helped and hurt him. Nikita was at least less pale, and his eyes less glazed than the night before. They were going home this morning. A three hour car ride, with three of their friends, in a rocky van, with traffic, and Annie hadn't done her make-up, and Jack was going to be hell to get out of bed, let alone wake him up enough to drive.

"This was a bad idea," Noah muttered as he felt Nikita's forehead absently. Still no fever. At least there was that.

"I know that," Nikita responded.

"What? Oh, no, not—I wasn't saying I told you so. I was... just saying it because it's true."

"I know." Nikita was curled up so his knees nearly touched his forehead. His body was obscured by the blankets, but Noah could feel an elbow knocking him in the ribs. "I knew before we left."

"So did I," Noah recalled. He frowned then and couldn't help it when he asked, "Then why did you want to come?"

"I knew it was a bad idea. Doesn't mean I didn't want to come."

It had been dumb. Nikita was usually the smarter of the two of them, but it didn't mean he didn't make mistakes, stupid decisions where he let what he wanted to be true win out over how things truly were.

If Nikita had wanted to have fun at an amusement park with his friends, what he'd gotten was a quiet exhaustion, an enduring thirst, a growing discomfort he couldn't relieve, and Noah’s constant scrutiny.

Noah touched his cheek. He met the surprised dark eyes and kissed his mouth. "Sorry, man."

The faucet in the bathroom turned off with a creaking of pipes. Nikita hunkered down further into his blankets.

"We're gonna go home soon," Noah said. "We'll do some fun shit, okay?"

"Oh god," Nikita muttered into the blankets. Noah grinned.

"What do you say? Let's rent a horror movie and six romances and then swap them all up, so we never know if it's love or death that's coming."

"You can tell by the actors," Nikita said.

"I can't."

"I can."

"Foreign films?"

Nikita was smiling. "You don't read films. You make up a story and I can never fucking concentrate on the subtitles when you're doing the voices."

"Foreign films it is."

"Oh my god," Nikita said again, and this time he closed his eyes and bit his lip and curled up further. "God, I want to go home."

"Yep," Noah said, and promptly launched himself from the bed. He walked across the room, removed Jack's blanket in one yank, and tossed it across the room.

"What the hell, man!" Their friend cried, sitting up with ruffled hair.

"Rise and shine," Noah grinned. "Everyone wants to go the fuck home."

"Goddammit," Jack muttered, rubbing his face.

Next Noah banged a fist on the bathroom door as he walked passed, alerting Stella that others were waiting—had been, in one person's case, for 24 hours. They'd have to wash up anyway, Noah knew that, and with any luck, he could get Nikita to free up enough to relieve himself, even a little, in the toilet. Hell, in the sink if it made him more comfortable; in the bathtub if it would work.

"Morning," Stella said, looked pretty as she stepped out of the steam filled bath. She'd had a shower, but since no one else seemed to be launching themselves into the bath, Noah called it.

Noah shook Nikita's shoulder to alert him. "Our turn in the bathroom, come on."

He grabbed a change of clothes for each of them from their bags, and didn't have to do too much work ushering Nikita, who was clearly still weak and a little sleepy from the bed and into the bath. He shut the door behind them, and stood in the humid, warm bath.

"I'm going to piss," Noah said. "I want you to come stand next to me."

Nikita blinked at him, fiddling with a toothbrush. "Noah?"

"Just stand next to me. If I have to piss, you definitely do. It might help you."

Nikita shook his head slowly. "You know I'm weird. I can't."

"You're not weird, lots of people have pani—"

"Don't."

"Panic disorders," said Noah. "They're a thing in a book somewhere. Enough people have them that it got put in books, okay? But there's actually nothing keeping you from using the toilet, any more than anything keeps me. So I want you to stand next to me. Do you think that would help?"

Nikita looked between him and the toilet, giving Noah the tiniest hope that he could get his boyfriend to at least try letting his body do what it was supposed to.

"Nikki, please?"

"Why are you calling me that lately?" Nikita asked, the question a distraction as he moved to stand beside Noah.

"Dunno, you haven't got mad yet. We're gonna try this."

Nikita shrugged his shoulders and looked resigned.

"Good." Noah reached behind him and turned on the faucet, full blast, hoping the sound would ease his anxiety, and if not that, coax his sleepy body into the desperate state for relief he knew it must need.

"You want me to watch you piss?" Nikita muttered when Noah was getting his cock out. Both eyebrows went up. "and listen to the faucet," he swallowed, shuddering once, "am I being punished for something?"

"Just try to pee, Nikita," Noah begged, "please just try it, okay? I want you to be comfortable. It's the only fucking thing I ever wanted out of this trip."

Nikita didn't say anything to that, but he did watch Noah. And Noah did have to piss, and the faucet was a tease to the contents of his own bladder if not Nikita's, so he let a thick stream go, urine splattering in the pool of the toilet.

Nikita made a soft sound, eyes moving from his dick to the stream of urine. He bit his lip, swaying as if he might double over.

"That was mean," Nikita proclaimed softly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He swallowed and looked at Noah when he shook off. His own hand was kneading his clothed crotch. "Noah..."

"Your turn." Noah herded him gently into a position in front of the toilet, encouraged that Nikita had neither started to hyperventilate nor ran from the room. He rested his hands on Nikita's bony hips. "Are we gonna try this?"

Nikita breathed deeply.

"It's just like at home," Noah soothed. "I'm here, and so are you. It's not different." His hand crept to the waistband of Nikita's pajamas, rested low over his pelvis so as not to aggravate the bump of his full bladder that his shirt hid. "Try this for me. If you relieve yourself now, you can have all the water you want on the trip home."

Nikita shuddered, and miraculously, freed his cock from the cloth confines of his bottoms. "I can't..."

"Just relax and try." Noah didn't say how worried he was if Nikita didn't manage it, about the ride home or the possible infections he might give himself and pain he might put himself through. That wouldn't help. Firm hands would, a smooth voice, gently encouraging until Nikita was standing in front of the toilet.

A splatter. That was all it was at first, but Noah could have spun him around and kissed him, had it not meant he'd have an ocean of piss on his shoes in a moment. He wouldn't have minded that either. As long as Nikita just pissed.

"Oh, god," Nikita whimpered at the second dribble. Noah could feel his whole body clamp where he was brushing Nikita's middle gently.

"No, that's good," Noah whispered, "keep doing that, come on, you need to piss, you've got to be bursting. Let it out."

"Oh, god, you're pep talking me," Nikita whimpered, even as another short spurt of piss came through his anxious grip and hit the water of the toilet. Nikita made a horrified noise.

"That's good," Noah reassured him, "I'm not just doing this to be a dick. You're brave, Nikita. This is good. Keep trying to let go, okay? Do you know you haven't pissed since yesterday morning?"

Nikita let out a hysterical kind of giggle. "I think I know. Stop saying stupid things. Oh, god, I can't—I can't hold it."

"You don't have to hold it, you can pee, that's right," Noah couldn't stop saying stupid things if Nikita had promised him the world. Not if it meant getting over this one hurdle, this one day, so Nikita could ride home without being desperate for relief and parched at the lips.

Another splash in the toilet, then two. Nikita was pressed so hard into Noah’s front that he would have fallen backward had Noah not had his arms wrapped around Nikita's middle.

Noah kept murmuring dumb encouragements, and as he began to rub a soothing circle over the tight knot of Nikita's bladder, the drips and dribbles became a thin stream. The thin stream became a torrent. Nikita started to melt. Someone knocked at the door.

Nikita tensed up so fast he took Noah with him when he reeled. The helpless stream of piss still coming out of him hit the rim of the toilet and the linoleum of the floor. Nikita gasped out long, frightened curses.

"You're still okay," Noah breathed, "You can still go, Nikita. You're doing good—"

"I pissed on the floor," Nikita gasped out. That relieving stream had stopped. Nikita's voice was shaky with the effort not to break. "I, I don't know what I was just doing. I pissed on the floor. God, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have, I didn't mean to."

"Fuck the floor," Noah said. "Nikita."

Nikita was shaking his head back and forth fiercely. He shoved the still wet length of his cock back into his pajama bottoms.

"I don't do that." Nikita sounded more panicked by the moment. "I don't do this." A second knock at the door. They were taking too long. Jack was awake and Annie hadn't had the chance to put her make-up on. Nikita jumped at the sound a second time. His hands shook. "Oh, fuck, I didn't..."

"You did really good," Noah said, pulling him into a gentle hug. He reached out and flushed the handle of the toilet. "You didn't think you could piss in public, and you can. You just did. That was perfect, Nikita."

Nikita responded with a more hysterical sound than before. Noah pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"Let's get ready to go, okay? The toilet is there if you want to try again."

Nikita shook his head so violently he made himself dizzy. Noah caught him easily enough, not unprepared for a bout of fainting. He pulled Nikita's shirt off, wet a washcloth, and hung it over Nikita’s neck to ward off a full blown panic attack. He dressed himself quickly, and Nikita more carefully. Twin feeling of utter ruin—Nikita's bladder was still going to be overfull, he hadn't finished—and wondrous amazement—Nikita had never been so brave before—overtook Noah. Accompanying all this, there was a hot rage at whoever had knocked on the door. Whichever friend it was he didn't want to know, because at that moment, he wanted to rip them to shreds, and they'd never be allowed to know why he was angry, or what they had ruined.

Nikita's bladder, swollen and unsatisfied by those few moments of relief, made Noah fear zipping and buttoning up his jeans once he had them on, and it was the loosest pair Nikita owned. Since Nikita was no longer contributing to the whole affair, he left the fly open rather than push on his poor, teased body, and gave Nikita his own shirt, which was large at the shoulders and more importantly, long enough to cover the undone fly.

Noah kissed him, and opened the door at the third knocking. Outside the bathroom, Annie laughed. "Why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

"Don't talk to me right now," Noah returned. Moments later, Annie noted that Nikita was wearing his shirt. "Don't talk to him either."

Annie stuck her tongue out. "God, can't you two keep your hands to yourselves for ten minutes?"

He had had his hand on Nikita's dick, though not for the reason she thought.

"Ignore her," Noah muttered. He needn't have bothered. Ignore was Nikita's current default state. He looked dazed. When the bathroom door closed, and the sound of pipes creaking and water running filled the claustrophobic hotel room, Noah threw and shirt on and led Nikita quickly outside.

"We're going to the vending machines," Noah told him when Nikita didn't ask. "You're looking a bit—faint-y."

"I didn't faint," Nikita said. Noah wanted to kiss him all over again, but made himself resist.

"You signed out, though. Stay with me, okay? Don't disappear in your head again. You were brave. That was... brave," he trailed off, shaking his head, unsure of how to express how good it was to Nikita, when he knew Nikita would be afraid, angry, horrified at himself when he realized what he'd done, just because he normally didn't. "We're getting you some chocolate at a reward. It's reward chocolate."

"I'm not 5."

"What kind of chocolate do you want?"

"I'm not 5, Noah."

"Faint-y."

"Pick anything," Nikita mumbled, ignoring the selection in the vending machines.

He picked everything. Four chocolate bars, a bag of gummy worms, and three Gatorades, just in case. If Nikita couldn't drink them in the car, he'd still need them once they were home.

"Thirsty," Nikita mumbled, reaching to be given one of the Gatorades. Noah unscrewed the top until it snapped and handed it over.

"Go slow. You haven't been drinking and it's a long ride home. That was good, by the way."

"It was bad," Nikita whispered into his blue Gatorade. Thankfully he only sipped it, because Noah didn't want to be the ass who took the Gatorade from his dehydrated boyfriend. But he also didn't want Nikita to burst something vital.

"You were good, and brave, and awesome, and fuck you if you don't think so."

Nikita snorted into his drink. "For peeing? Fuck you too."

"I'm serious."

"I know. It's ridiculous."

"No it's fucking not. Eat your chocolate bar, I can see you not doing it.”

"I don't want chocolate." Nikita handed the bar back. Noah handed him the bag of gummy worms in exchange. Nikita shrugged and stuffed a few in his mouth. Good enough.

They walked back to the room and it was empty save for Annie. She'd put on make-up, but her lips and eyebrows were pale, like she'd gotten halfway through and then decided she didn't care how she looked on a three hour drive in the car.

"There you guys are. Jack and Stella are already packing things into the car."

"We're ready," Noah said. He looked at Nikita, and nodded. "Let's go."

As soon as they made it down to the parked van, Stella was on them. "Nikita! You look better. I think. Does he look better?" Her eyes flicked to Noah.

"I'm better," Nikita responded quickly enough. "I was fine before, too."

"Then you can't be better."

"Sure he can," Noah ushered her into the car. "We're calling the back two seats."

"No one else wants the back two seats," Jack said into the rear view mirror as they climbed into the car. "Shotgun is only for the front seat."

"There's only one front seat," Noah pointed out.

"You two are hopeless," said Jack.

"It's cute," said Annie

"Shotgun," and Stella.

Nikita remained tactfully silent, which wasn't a surprise.

The ride was bumpy, just as the ride there had been, only now Noah wasn't worried about the day they had in front of them, or how Nikita would 'handle' it. He was thinking about how Nikita had handled it, although unhealthily, although imperfectly, he had handled it. He was thinking about how there were three hours in a car in front of them, and Nikita might not have been fully awake at the hotel, but the few dribbles of piss into the toilet that had been such a step for him was bound to have woken his bladder up, had it been sleeping.

Cars whipped by, landscape to landscape. Jack bitched and Annie and Stella chatted. No one had liked their beds. Everyone agreed the ice cream was good.

On a freeway, somewhere before the road would get mountainous, Nikita awoke from his thirst and panic induced stupor enough to complain about the music. A vote was taken, and finally only a radio station in Spanish could be decided upon by all.

Nikita began to look around the car, licking his lips, leaning forward.

"Do you want the Gatorade back?"

Nikita shook his head. "I can't believe I did that."

"Me either. It was good."

Slowly, Nikita nodded. So Noah kissed him, and Nikita kissed him back, and eventually Jack complained.

Once Nikita's hard-on had died down, he began to shift around again, eyes searching out the nothingness that the lanes of cars offered him. "I want to go home."

"We're going."

"Do you feel okay?" Annie asked. "Stella, is he carsick?"

Noah could hear the eyeroll in Stella's response. "I don't know, ask him."

"I'm fine," Nikita said. His jaw clenched in a way that indicated he wasn't at all.

He lasted another hour and a half, and Noah almost believed he'd make it, that he'd slip back into the sleepy, weak state he'd spent most of the journey in, and be saved the embarrassment of their friends knowing anything about the disorder he himself refused to name. An hour and a half later, though, Nikita was gripping Noah’s leg so hard it hurt.

"We're close," Noah tried, gently.

Nikita had been biting his lip, and it was raw when he bit it then. "It hurts."

Noah swallowed his concern. He massaged Nikita's leg, and got yelled at by Jack.

Nikita tucked himself into Noah’s side, as far as his seatbelt would allow him to stretch, when Noah withdrew his hand. "Please keep touching me. Please. Please?"

Nikita would hardly have asked for such a thing, or allowed himself to be so vulnerable, at the very heart of love making, so the words then bowled Noah over. He moved his hand to Nikita's shoulder instead, massaging the muscles beneath velvet skin.

"Does it help?" he murmured.

Nikita nodded, but his lip had gone bloody from biting.

"We're closer now," Noah whispered in what he would have hoped was comfort. Nikita made an almost silent, almost sobbing sound in return. Oh. "Nikita."

"It's too long."

Noah couldn't argue with that. Except for a few second respite, it had been more than 24 hours. That wasn't normal.

"Jack, drive a little less like a grandpa, would you?"

Jack snorted. "We're an hour away, dude, and that's without traffic. What, you got a hot date with the other girlfriend?"

"Remind me why we're friends?" Noah said.

"Sorry Nikita," said Jack. "Really, I'm sorry. I like you best. If anything, Noah is the girlfriend."

"You're really not helping yourself," Stella snapped.

"Noah," Nikita murmured. "Can you—please?"

There wasn't much Noah could do but talk, and touch Nikita, because he'd asked, and Noah hadn't taken a hand off him since.

"If you like Nikita, drive faster. Nikita's the one who's anxious to get home. He—doesn't feel well."

Satisfying when the car sped up, but now Stella had turned to look at them, as had Annie, and Jack in the rearview mirror.

"Is he really carsick? He wasn't on the way here. Was he?" Annie pondered. "He never said. Actually, you've been really quiet this whole trip, Nikita."

"Have you met him?" Noah offered in annoyance.

"I don't feel well. Please." Nikita offered. It wasn't a lie. Noah didn't doubt his bladder hurt now, and his voice shook with it. The vague "please," a beg for no particular thing, would have alarmed anyone who had not been previously alarmed. 

"Do you want me to pull over, dude?" Jack asked. He'd switched out of the fast lane.

Stella was scrutinizing Nikita's hunched form and nodding. "Nikita, do you want to lie in the grass for a bit? We could stop at a park or something. No one's desperate to get home. It's only noon."

"I want to go home," Nikita moaned at that. "Please, please, please."

Stella's face crumpled, and Noah could second the sentiment when she mumbled a normally unwelcome, "Oh, baby..."

"What's the matter?" Annie's eyebrows were drawn together. Jack looked twitchy in the front seat as well.

"Nikita," Noah murmured to him. He was rubbing the back of his neck. Nikita was doubled over forward as far as the seatbelt would allow. He didn't know what to say after that. Nikita might not have fainted, but he looked signed out and dazed again. _'Do you want them to know'_ Noah wondered. _'Because usually you'd rather stab yourself than even talk to me about it.'_

Hell, Nikita had never brought the subject up with Noah. Not when they'd dated, and Noah had found his abrupt endings of dates and quiet unhappiness at the end of the day sometimes worrying, sometime enigmatic. Not even when they'd first moved in together, had Nikita ever brought himself to mention “so by the way, I can't actually piss in public bathrooms, and yes, since we are newly roommates, this bathroom is now public, and since I have recently let the lease go on my own apartment, there are no bathrooms that aren't public.”

Or, well, he hadn't offered even a shortened, hinted version of that. He'd gone from Nikita's version of ecstatic the first day to vaguely miserable by the night. Then he'd started showing clear signs of being in pain, and Noah had said, “shit, do you have appendicitis, oh my god,” and Nikita had begged him to go away, which Noah had found strange.

“Just please,” Nikita begged, and that had been something because Nikita never begged, so rarely said please, so rarely even asked for anything. “Just please, go somewhere else.”

He'd wanted Noah to leave the apartment. And Noah had thought their relationship was ending, but he'd gone out because please, and when he'd come back Nikita hadn't been any better off, because alone or not, a public bathroom was a public bathroom to him, and something in his head was so strong it strangled the rest of him, body tangled up in a sad pretzel on the sofa when Noah returned an hour later.

Nikita hadn't cried. He'd looked very pale, and very resigned, and very pained, and very hopeless, when Noah had finally tugged him onto his feet, intent on getting a look at what he'd thought was his stomach. Because Nikita's stomach was flat, but it hadn't been after a day of drinking and moving boxes and a night of waiting for a relief he couldn't find. And when Noah had palpated his distended bladder, like he was some kind of doctor instead of a guy who just hoped his boyfriend was sick rather than breaking up with him, Nikita squeezed his eyes shut, went even paler, and lost control on the floor of their new apartment.

After that there had been few words, and a lot of feelings all around, more surprised on Noah’s end and, Noah now understood, quietly self loathing on Nikita's. After he'd released the liquid swelling his abdomen, Nikita had murmured something about paying Noah the security deposit, and gone to get a towel from the box he'd carried in that said towels on the side, and started kicking himself out of their apartment without Noah’s help.

"Ok," Noah had said. "Ok, look, this has been the best and the weirdest day of my life, and I kind of thought we were going to live together forever, so if you're breaking up with me, just do it, and if you're not, can you explain what you are doing, because I'm confused."

"I'm breaking up with me," Nikita muttered. He was on his knees cleaning pee off the floor. His knees were wet, so whenever he moved he created a new spot to clean. It wasn't efficient, Noah remembered thinking, but he hadn't thought it a good time to criticize.

"You're breaking up with you?"

"Yes. It's the right thing to do," Nikita ended up crawling onto the blue towel and then just sitting there, helplessly, in wet clothes.

"Are you, like, schizophrenic?" Noah had asked.

Nikita had told him he was thinking of Dissociative Identity Disorder (Noah was pretty sure he wasn't) and no, that wasn't what was wrong with him.

"But there is something wrong with you?" Noah asked. It had seemed the obvious next question. Now when he thought about it, it hurt to think.

"I will say this word once," Nikita said to the blue towel, "and then if we keep exchanging words after that, I don't want you to say it, and I'm not going to say it either."

"Okay, so it's like Voldemort." No smiles for Noah. Noah would later learn Nikita hadn't read Harry Potter and promptly fix this. "What's the word?"

"Paruresis."

He had really only said that one word, and into the silence that followed Noah had offered, "You might have to write that down for me."

"I don't know how it's spelled."

"You? You correct my grammar when we text."

"It is my least favorite word," It was the first thing Nikita sounded impassioned about since his voice had gone dead when Noah had returned to the apartment to find him all pretzel shaped—needing to piss, he now realized.

That was why Nikita's abdomen had been distended, and why he'd been so tense and strange. When he thought about it, he couldn't remember Nikita leaving to go to the bathroom that night. When he thought about it, he couldn't remember Nikita ever leaving to go to the bathroom.

"I wanted to think," Nikita said to the towel. "That I could live here with you, somewhere where you would be and I," he smiled at his own expense, "I can't be, that was stupid."

"You're being really weird tonight," Noah admitted, which was a fair statement, considering the turn of events. "Are you going to be like this every night?"

That won him Nikita's attention. He looked up from the towel.

"Because it's fine," Noah said once he had Nikita's eyes locked on his, "if you are, you're fine how you are. I just want to know now so I can get used to the idea, that's all."

"I don't know," Nikita did look very confused, sitting there on the piss towel. Noah had never been very grossed out by bodily fluids, urine included. He had the vague notion that that was going to be a much more helpful quality in his relationship than expected.

"Fair enough." Noah shrugged. "Do you want me to google that word so I know what it means?"

"Do you remember the word?"

"No," Noah admitted.

"I'm not saying it again," Nikita reminded him. He was very consistent on that, if nothing else.

Noah would later find the word on his own connected to some careful googling. He still planned on teaching Nikita how to spell it someday. You had to start somewhere, and Nikita liked being right about big words and silly commas.

"To be clear," Noah said, because nothing really was right then, "No one has broken up with me. We are still together."

Nikita looked like he thought Noah had poor taste. "We are. We are?"

Noah was pretty confident in his taste. "If it's up to me, and not you and the other you, then yeah, we just moved all the bits of our lives together, I'm not moving them back apart."

"I can move them," said Nikita.

"You weigh like 20 pounds. Besides, we know where the towels are."

Nikita smiled a very painful smile. Even the memory of it was painful. Sometimes smiles were so much worse than any frown, any angry expression, any disgust. Sometimes just a smile, when someone was unhappy, was the most horrible thing to look into.

So Noah got on his knees too, and didn't bother with smiles, and he offered a kiss, inches from Nikita's mouth, until Nikita took it. Sad kisses were marginally better than sad smiles, and the hug that followed certainly was.

"I love you," Noah said for the first time. He hadn't really been looking for the right moment and he hadn't really found it. "I thought I'd put that out there, you know. That I love you. I'm getting this weird feeling that you don't think it's possible to love you."

"Weird," Nikita agreed in one of the weakest voices Noah had ever heard.

"Glad I cleared that up for you, if you were weird enough to think it."

"You're welcome," Nikita said. "Thank you. I'm fine."

"Now you're not even trying."

"No," Nikita said. "No, that's me trying. That thing before was me not trying. That was—I thought I'd broken up with me, so it didn't matter so much." He looked down at himself—themselves, now that Noah had maneuvered to hold him. "You matter."

It wasn't quite an I love you, but coming from Nikita, it really kind of was.

"So, what just happened, exactly?"

"I don't know," Nikita said. It was the most things Nikita had ever not known in a day.

"You wet yourself."

Nikita turned from pale to pink, like a sad little sunrise.

"Why, is the question that I think I'm trying to ask?"

"I couldn't hold it," Nikita answered numbly. This was not the answer to the question Noah asked and both of them knew it. "I don't—I don't ever—"

"Okay," Noah said to that when it ended it no further information, and yet he understood, he thought. "You don't ever go to the toilet. I can see how that would..."

They both looked at the towel.

"I'd like to not talk about it," said Nikita. "I'd like to stop."

"What would you like?" Noah offered, in hopes they might find something else, that was not simply sitting here in desolation, although the hug was very nice.

"I would like," Nikita said slowly. "I would like you to respect me."

"Done."

"I would like to lie down." Nikita bit his lip. "And for you to lie down with me, because you don't find me repulsive."

"Can be done," Noah said, and thought of ways to make it happen. "The bed's not set up. Blankets on the carpet?"

"I'd like that," Nikita repeated.

So Noah lay out the blankets, from the box labeled blankets, because Nikita had labeled all the boxes and they were correct and accurate to a strange degree, and he built them a sort of nest like enclosure, and placed himself in the middle, while he waited for Nikita to clean up, thought he could google this, and noted that Nikita was not unwilling to enter their bathroom to clean up or change clothes, so it was not a universal ban on bathrooms for all purposes.

Nikita came to lay in the nest, close to Noah, and the perchance for snuggling was born even for Nikita, who was usually quite cold, and survived from then on, much to Noah’s delight.

Back in the car, Nikita was snuggling very tightly into him, as one trying to hide, even in his dazed state of mind.

Their friends concern was hyper-focused on Nikita. Noah didn't know how to save the thing that Nikita so diligently guarded, that he refused to learn the correct spelling of, speak the word more than that once, or have Noah speak it.

He thought he ought to try, really.

"Nikita said he'd like to go home," Noah repeated his boyfriend's earlier words to the members of the car. "If we want Nikita to feel better, lets get Nikita home. Faster, Jack."

"Does Nikita know what's best for him?" Stella asked with raised eyebrows.

"Nikita is Nikita."

"Biggest thing in his favor, biggest thing against," said Stella. "Doesn't answer my question, really."

"Stella—"

But Nikita's breathing was more important. Deep, hitching breaths. Silent sobs, but the tears streaming down his face were hard to mistake.

"Oh my god," said Annie. "Nikita, why are you—sorry, I'm sorry. Everything's okay, Nikita!"

Not really, but a nice thought.

Stella offered, "Nikita, sweetie, what's the matter? Everyone is worried now. Please tell us."

Jack might have sped up a tad.

"Nikita," Noah offered, because everyone else had said everything else. "Have I told you that I'm in love with you lately."

"Yes," Nikita breathed through tightly contained sobs. "I hurt, Noah. I can't hold it."

"Let it out, baby," Stella was murmuring. She probably didn't quite understand the situation, but Noah could second the sentiment. All the car cleaning services in the world, all the embarrassment, to see Nikita comfortable, to see Nikita _himself_ again.

Nikita put his hand, clearly trembling for all of them to see, in front of the tears that had streamed down his face. It did little to hide his dignity.

"Jack," Noah said, “pull off at the next exit and stop us somewhere private."

"Okay, but why?"

"I don't understand what's wrong," Annie kept saying, and how embarrassing it must have been for his boyfriend, to have them wonder, to have them know in the next few moments, because this was happening, now.

"Jack's going to stop the car," Noah murmured their plan to Nikita, "And you and I are going to get out, and step into the trees, and no will see us, okay?"

Nikita had curled further into himself. The seat belt was cutting into him. His palms were pressed into his lap. Noah didn't think he could do anything after 24 without pissing. Nikita was going to lose it either way.

"Nikita," he said, "okay?"

"I can't," Nikita sobbed. "It hurts so bad. I want to wet myself."

"You can," Noah murmured. He’s in full support of whatever Nikita decides he needs to do in those moments. 

"He's what?" said Annie. "Noah, he's going to _wet_ himself?"

"He wouldn't want me to tell you," Noah admitted.

"He just told us himself," Annie pointed out. She wasn’t wrong.

"Do not piss in the van," said Jack from the front seat. "I'm lost to this conversation, so if that wasn't what you said, sorry Nikita. But seriously, no one piss in my van."

Noah wanted to punch him. He bet it was Jack who knocked on the bathroom door. He blamed Jack. It was that anger, fiery and strong, that led him to say. "He hasn't pissed since we left for the theme park yesterday. If he pisses in the van, fucking let him. I'll pay to have it cleaned, I give no fucks."

"He hasn't what?" said Stella. Noah could feel the sentiment was mimicked by all of their friends. Nikita was still crying. He still hadn't released his bladder. They were pulling off the road, towards trees and privacy that Noah didn't know what they'd do with.

"I can't" Nikita said. He'd been murmuring it over and over, but in that moment it took on a distinct meaning. Can't piss. Can't away from home. Hence the 24 hours of not drinking, of not pissing, of waiting, still waiting.

"Why would he do that?" Annie asked. "That doesn't make sense."

"Shush, Annie," Stella murmured. "Not everything makes sense."

Annie didn't shush. "Why would he do that?"

Jack added from the car’s front, "I mean. You can piss in my car if you have to. If you get it cleaned. You can if you, you whatever."

"Good," said Noah. "Fine someplace to stop, trees."

Beside him, Nikita was so trembly that Noah could barely contain him with a hug any longer. He tried to hold on tighter but the movement, meant of love and affection and protection even from embarrassment, made Nikita moan, shifting the shape of his tortured bladder, and a gush of piss, not unlike the first thankful spurt in the hotel bathroom, bloomed through his jeans, and into the thigh of Noah’s where his crotch pressed.

"You're doing good," Noah said. "That's good, Nikita. That's fine. You can. You can piss now. Everyone understands. The car can be washed. Stella's concerned for your health. Annie wants things to make sense. No one loves you any less."

"You're raving," Nikita breathed into him and at the very same time the sound of his crying was becoming less suppressed. Another hot spurt met Noah’s legs, which he was so strangely thankful for.

Noah said, "I want you to piss now, on me, on anything" and touched Nikita's middle. The gush of long held liquid on his leg and the car cushions was something he was so grateful for, it shouldn't have been possible.

“That's right." Noah rubbed his tense back up and down. "You're gonna go."

"Is he pissing himself?" said Annie.

"Yes, Annie," Stella had turned away to offer them some blatantly false sense of privacy.

"That's good," said Annie. "I guess it's good. It's weird. You really shouldn't hold it that long. Yesterday, he said?"

"Yes, Annie," This time it was Noah who spoke, through all his attention was focused on Nikita in his lap the the hot swell between them. "He had to wait for a very long time, and it hurt. Be nice."

"That's easy," said Annie. "I'm usually nice anyway, and that's just when people don't need it."

That was not untrue, and Noah had a new respect for her, among all the other chaos.

With a few jerks and the sound of crunching gravel, the van pulled off the road. Outside the window there were trees all around and even a public bathroom. 

A hot spurt of urine streamed down Noah’s thigh.

“He can’t move,” Noah said, a bit helplessly. He wasn’t trying to keep the mess contained anymore. Screw the mess. As long as Nikita was relieved, it didn’t matter what kind of mess they had to make.

“I was just going to get out and stretch my legs,” Annie offered with surprising cheer. The door to the van swung open, letting in the cool air from outside, and Stella quickly exited the van after her. A moment later, Annie came around to the driver’s side and opened the door. “Jack, your legs need stretching.”

Jack slipped out after her, and after a moment of confusion, shut the door behind him. Stella slammed the passenger door, and Annie dragged both their friends off into the field, with the trees and the privacy, so Nikita could keep pissing against Noah’s leg without three observers. 

Noah had never loved or respected his friends more.

“You can let go. No one is here but me.”

With a choked noise, hot wetness exploded between them, wetting the length of Noah’s thigh and streaming through Nikita’s tight jeans like they were paper. Tendrils of piss burst out at several places along the seam of his jeans.

Noah, because he couldn’t help himself, was pressing an open bottle of gatorade to Nikita’s lips before he’d even finished pissing. Nikita made a noise between a laugh and a sob, gulping from the bottle and releasing waves of urine all over Noah and the seat. 

When Nikita had finally emptied his bladder, Noah was already on his second bottle of gatorade.

“Are you okay?” he asked, when Nikita slumped down into his lap. “I mean-- for a given value--”

“Everyone knows,” said Nikita. 

“Your friends know,” said Noah. “And they love you.”

Nikita blinked. He looked so much less pale, so much more alive even in his exhaustion, that Noah had to tear his gaze away from their friends, waiting a ways off in the field, to kiss him.

Slowly, they managed to extricate themselves from each other, unwinding legs and arms and lips, until Nikitas was back in his seat, both of them soaked from crotch to knee. Noah was grinning the whole time. He felt light and free for the first time since they’d left the house the morning before. He felt better than then. 

Hesitantly, Nikita waved their friends back towards the car. 

When everyone had filed in, Nikita had to field so many questions about whether or not he was okay and how he felt now that he was blushing harder than he had been when he pissed himself by the time their friends were satisfied. 

Smiling, Noah leaned closer and said into his ear. “I’m proud of how you handled it.”

Nikita blushed harder.


End file.
